In the past weeks more than 50.000 civilians fled the northern war zone. Thousands of them are badly injured. The number of fleeing civilians made it clear that the government had vastly underestimated how many people were caught in the fighting.

There are many unaccompanied children in the camps who are in great need of psychosocial support. Malnutrition is also a major problem. The governemt is not allowing UNICEF to do anything for these children and the governmental Child and Probation Department does not have the capacity to do it by themselves. This department is poorly trained and lacks professionalism in it's activities. Recently the governemt has realized that it can not provide services on its own and Medicins Sans Frontier has agreed to provide field hospitals near the IDP (Internally displaced persons) camps. Last week an acute in patient mental health unit was opened in the Vavuniya hospital. This will provide some respite for the seriously mentally ill in the area.

In the Lady Ridgeway hospital in Colombo dozens of children have arrived who fled from war zones. Many are injured and lost one or both of their parents. They are in great need of psychosocial and emotional support. GIP is supporting these children. If you would like to help, please click here.

• Providing financial support to NEST, a Sri Lanka based NGO which focuses on community services and provides unique programs for the reintegration of persons into the community.
• Seeking financial support for developing mental health care programs for children in the IDP camps (in Northern Sri Lanka).

The constant displacement of people, the disruption of social networks, services and violence, as well as the violence, all these factors have resulted in enormous levels of suffering and distress within the communities in Northern Sri Lanka.

A stronger link between structural mental health care service development and post conflict trauma care would be beneficial to both sides. The existence of regular, sustainable and nationwide community based mental health care services would make a lasting response to trauma much more effective in future.  
At the same time, it is important to note that there is now a growing understanding that post-trauma care following a natural or man-made disaster is often rather useless and in some cases even counterproductive. People need to fall back on their own resilience and coping capacity and the initial focus is on getting back to a sense of "normalcy" as quickly as possible. This includes ensuring that services and support networks are supported and that the disruptions of people's lives are minimized as much as possible. 

  In the case of the military conflict, we are looking at continuing traumatizing situations where care to the traumatized population should be provided in a much more structured way over a long period of time. For this the link between specialized trauma care and community mental health care services would be very helpful.

• Strengthening and continuing the development of community based mental health care services in Sri Lanka;
• Supporting the deinstitutionalization plans for the three psychiatric hospitals in the Colombo area;
• Developing a support mechanism to NGO's working in trauma aftercare of persons victimized by the ongoing military conflict in Sri Lanka;
• Developing specific support programs for hitherto untouched or specialized areas, such as forensic psychiatry and child and adolescent mental health;
• Assisting in developing mechanisms that help to curb the current brain drain of, in particular, psychiatrists and nurses to other countries in the world.